Just Looking

Fran has listened to all of them for fourteen years. This year she heard rather more than they told her.

Fran is fifty, a copywriter, and the quiet one at Friday drinks: soda and lime, stacked silver rings, first into the booth every week so that she can tell Bec she's late. Last year she wrote the warm, gentle voice of the app her four best friends now confide in at two in the morning. This year she found that she could read what they told it. And she did, most nights, for eight months.

Now the company knows. Two of her friends know. The others will hear soon, and Fran has never in her life explained herself to anyone. At home there is Greg, who still leaves the house every morning in his suit. She is about to find out where he goes.

Before the year is out, Fran means to sit down with each of the women she betrayed, give back what she took, and tell the truth, without once asking to be forgiven. It may be the bravest thing she has ever done. It may also be far too late.